YFM Equity Partners has invested in the £18.1 million management buyout of Smart Numbers Ltd, a communications provider offering a range of virtual telephone numbers, call management, website design, digital marketing, broadband, VoIP and office telephone systems to small businesses. The investment led by Smart Numbers’ current MD, Tim Hutchings, will help stimulate the company’s growth. Richard Last, former chair of connectivity provider Gamma Communications plc, will join the business as non-executive chairman to support the firm’s ambitious growth strategy. Nathan Willis will remain as FD. Founder Scott Woolaway will continue to hold a significant shareholding and remains a vice chairman on the board.
As a provider of cloud-hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony services, Smart Numbers is in a well-placed position to benefit from the upcoming switch-off of the UK’s analogue phone network, which is scheduled to take place by the end of 2025.
Woolaway noted, “After working together for more than a decade, I have absolute confidence in handing over full day-to-day control of the business to Tim Hutchings. This is an important stage of development for Smart Numbers and an exciting challenge for Tim and me personally.”
David Wrench, partner of YFM, stated, “Smart Numbers is a very well-regarded, specialist business that has dedicated itself to meeting the ever-evolving needs of its customers. We are confident that it will continue to follow a strong growth trajectory, as it helps more customers switch to cloud-based, digital telephony and reaches a wider swathe of the small business sector with its raft of expert marketing services.”